wayside, giving you a sense of companionship, which relieves the deep
solitude in which this way is usually traversed.  Some miles on this
side of Coniston there is a farmstead--a gray stone house, and a
square of farm-buildings surrounding a green space of rough turf, in
the midst of which stands a mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a
solemn shadow, as of death, in the very heart and centre of the light
and heat of the brightest summer day.  On the side away from the
house, this yard slopes down to a dark-brown pool, which is supplied
with fresh water from the overflowings of a stone cistern, into which
some rivulet of the brook before-mentioned continually and
melodiously falls bubbling.  The cattle drink out of this cistern.
The household bring their pitchers and fill them with drinking-water
by a dilatory, yet pretty, process.  The water-carrier brings with
her a leaf of the hound's-tongue fern, and, inserting it in the
crevice of the gray rock, makes a cool, green spout for the sparkling
stream. 

The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it was in the
lifetime of Susan Dixon.  Then, every small diamond pane in the
windows glittered with cleanliness.  You might have eaten off the